Darkness Descends
by KSTapp
Summary: Killian realises there is only one way to get the real Emma back


Darkness Descends

It was Emma but it wasn't. Even when she transformed herself into the blush coloured dress. The Emma who wore that dress was soft curves and shy smiles. The Emma on the Jolly Roger may have been wearing the same dress, but she was sharp angles and tricks.

He missed everything about the old Emma. The walls he had helped bring down, the kisses which ranged from gentle to scorchingly desperate. And something he couldn't place but he had a feeling that it had a lot to do with his missing memories.

Desperation was becoming a familiar friend. Desperate to rid Emma of the Dark One's hold. To get the old Emma back for her lad and Parents. And yes, for himself. To find out how they had failed, how he had failed to stop her for fully becoming the Dark One.

It near killed him each time he saw Henry. Every day the lad struggled to hold onto hope that he would get his Mother back, leaving Killian feeling as though he had failed both Emma and Henry.

There was nothing he wouldn't give to get the Saviour back. Even if it meant he wouldn't get to live out the future he had pictured so many times for them together. Perhaps that was what it was going to take. After all, without Emma, he had nothing.

Where was Merlin? Regina had told him that Emma had let it slip that she had hurt Henry to get an ingredient to free Merlin. So where was he?

There were too many missing pieces to this puzzle and every day they took to find answers, Emma grew a little darker. The darkness appeared to have taken a hold of Emma faster than it had the crocodile. That in itself struck terror in Killian's heart. How long before the darkness killed Emma and he was left without any form of her?

"You can't help me if I don't want to be helped." Her voice floated on the air but there was no sign of her.

"Maybe, but I can't lose you." Killian didn't know if Emma could hear him, but he replied anyway. He had a feeling this had been discussed before. There was a lot happening which had a familiar feel to it.

"That's supposed to be my line." Her voice drifted in on the air again.

"Aye. However it's not exclusive to you. Did you think I could live without you anymore than you can me." This was his last chance. At least that's how it felt.

"I hope not but after our conversation on the Jolly Roger I wasn't sure." Finally she appeared before him.

"You're my happy ending Emma, just not this version of you. I can't go back to that darkness, and I don't think the real you would want me to." Or at least he hoped she wouldn't.

"We can still be together." She almost sounded as though she was pleading. "What's wrong with this version of me?"

"It's not you Emma. The real you would never hurt Henry the way you did. The real you would have found another way." Hell the lad wasn't even his son and he would never have used him as she had. And worse still, it appeared to have been for nothing as here she stood before him as the Dark One.

"There was no other way. I tried to make it up to him." It would have worked too if Henry hadn't found out what she had done.

"The real Emma would have found another way." He knew it to be true.

"What makes you so sure this isn't the real me?" The tight smile on her face told him that she knew he could still see the real her and it wasn't the woman dressed in black before him.

"Because I know the real Emma Swan and she's an open book. You're not her." He took a breath. "The real Emma Swan, I'd give my life to bring her back."

She searched his face and the truth she saw there, chilled her to the bone. "You can't do that."

"I can and I will. Without the real you with me, there's no reason to be here." So that's what he was going to have to do. Fall on his sword, so to speak.

"What would be the point of going back to being her if you're not here to keep her anchored?" He was serious and even the mere thought of him not being here with her made it unbearable to even think of.

"Henry. Your Parents. Your friends." Did she not realise just how many people wanted her back?

She was speechless. Either way Dark Swan or Emma Swan, it was pointless without him. "You told me you were a survivor."

"Oh, I'll survive. I just won't be with you. But you'll be with your family." He turned and walked away. Regina would tell him what he needed to do. The right thing to do.

"Am I that difficult to love like this?" Her voice brought him to a halt.

"No love. You're that difficult to trust." With that he walked off leaving her standing in the middle of the street. Tears streaming down her face.


End file.
